Raised By Unicorns
Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
"I am honored to recommend this book to ALL parents. . . . [I]t relates to all families, tolerance, and love." — Greg Berlanti, writer, producer, director
"Raw and unfiltered. . . Lowe breaks new ground, highlighting the dire need for further exploration. 5 Hearts." — Foreword Reviews
"[A] powerful eye-opener." — Amanda Hopping-Winn, chief program officer, Family Equality Council
"Raw, personal, and uncensored, this must-read book gives us insight as to what it’s like to be raised by same-gender parents and how that can impact one’s life." —Eric Rosswood, author of The Ultimate Guide for Gay Dads and Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood
In recent years, the world has been saturated by endless blogs, articles, and books devoted to the subject of LGBTQ+ parenting. On the flip side, finding stories written by the children of LGBTQ+ parents is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. Now that the world is more accepting than ever of non-traditional families, it's time to create a literary space for this not-so-unique, shared, but completely individual experience.
In Raised by Unicorns: Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents, Frank Lowe has carefully edited an anthology that reflects on the upbringing of children in many different forms of LGBTQ+ families. From Baby Boomers to Generation Z, it features diverse stories that express the distinctiveness of this shared journey and of each particular family. It's visceral, raw, and not always pretty, but love is always the common thread.
Lowe candidly reveals true accounts of this particular niche of humanity, while simultaneously creating a moving snapshot of the world in which we live. Raised by Unicorns guides the reader through an empathetic journey that is nothing short of compelling and poignant. We've all heard the phrase "raised by wolves." Now we have a window into the complex world of being Raised by Unicorns.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This uplifting anthology of essays by people who were raised by lesbian and gay parents largely conveys the expected upbeat message that loving households produced happy, functional adults. Other themes do emerge, among them the shame experienced by children confronted with bigotry from a young age and the guilt they may feel later over having managed it imperfectly, as when Emily Grubbs recounts advising her little brother not to tell people he has two mothers after he was teased on the bus. "We essentially shoved ourselves back into the closet, hidden, and ashamed," she writes. Other essayists express their frustration at their unrecognized status within LGBTQ communities. Persis Ticknor-Swanson, a straight woman with lesbian moms, describes feeling excluded by the LGBTQ community at her college. The family models depicted in the collection are not all that diverse for example, there are no apparent transgender parents, and the majority of authors have mothers who were previously married to men and are now described as lesbians and partnered with women but the individual experiences are hardly uniform, even within the context of a single family. "One Coin, Two Sides," an essay written by siblings, wonderfully illustrates their differing experiences of being raised by two mothers ("Until reading my sister's essay, I hadn't even considered the differences between our experiences... but they are significant," the brother notes earnestly). The contributors aren't professional writers, which shows, but the book is nevertheless noteworthy for showcasing a rarely heard perspective. This review has been updated to reflect the fact that, while no parents are identified in any essay in the book as transgender, one is. As originally published, the review stated that no transgender parents were mentioned in the book.
